Emerson and Lucy
by EnumerateInfinity
Summary: What happens when Lucy decides to try to get Emerson to open up to her. Also includes the ending of the show. Complete - reviews welcome!
1. The Box

**Disclaimer: Not my world, not my characters. I just love writing about them.**

**My first finished story, reviews welcome.**

As they walked down the hospital hallway, Lucy watched Emerson from the corner of her eye. She had been trying to talk to him, to get him to open up to her since waking up from the coma, but he was as solid a wall for her as for everyone else.

"Emerson," she said, "I know I have to live on the island, but it's getting... lonely. I miss the talks we had. Could we go for a walk some evening, on the piers like we used to?"

He shook his head. "No. As long as you're a target it would be much too dangerous. But," he added, softening a little as her looked at her, "can I suggest a compromise? My apartment complex is fairly secure. I could pick us up some takeout. It would be... much less exposed, but it would get you off the island."

She smiled. "That sounds lovely. Now let's see if we can get some use out of that key.

* * *

It was days before they got their date. After finding that map in the cave, Emerson insisted that she not leave the island until they had more information about the 63s who might be nearby. No one trusted the doctor they found, so he was being treated like an inmate, only with more frequent interrogations. Everyone on their tiny task force plus some unwitting help from SFPD was kept hopping trying to find the 63s who were supposed to be nearby. It quickly became evident that many of them had not yet returned. She thought he had forgotten about his offer, until he showed up at her office at the end of a day, holding her coat. He looked a little more anxious and a little less surly than usual and she smiled. _Still likes to surprise me, that's good. Maybe I can get him to talk to me after all._

"I'm glad you remembered," she said as she shuttled things off her desk. "I'm not sure I could face another MRE." Lucy tried to stay lighthearted, hoping for a pleasant evening.

Emerson smiled briefly, but then turned serious again. "It may be a long drive. I'll need to be sure we aren't being followed. It's been quiet for a few days now, but they may just be lying low." He handed her the coat, and she wondered if she was about to find the man she loved or find that he was gone.

* * *

After a circuitous drive, they pulled up to a tall apartment complex with an underground garage. Emerson swiped a pass and the guard in the booth waved as he drove in. They parked, and walked towards the bank of elevators, Emerson carrying the bags of food that had been waiting in the car. Lucy heard other footsteps and Emerson pulled her sharply around a concrete support. A man walked by, towards the elevators, and Emerson waited for him to get on one before they continued. They took an elevator to Floor 6, and then he led her to the stairs where they walked up another two flights. She thought about making a joke about possibly excessive caution, but one look at his face told her now was not the time. The main hallway on the 8th floor was deserted and soon he had unlocked his apartment door. He motioned for her to stay at the door, drew his gun, and disappeared inside. A minute later he was back, holstering the gun. "It's clear, you can come in."

She stepped in and looked around. The apartment was sparsely furnished, and most of what there was looked barely used. She struggled to find something to say. "It's a... nice apartment. Very... uncluttered." She took off her coat and found a hook to hang it from.

"I spend most of my time working. Not much of a chance to make any clutter," he said. "Why don't you have a seat, I'll put the food out." He cracked a smile and added, "I think you'll like it."

She sat demurely on the couch and looked around more. Some of those years that she'd missed had been spent here, maybe she could learn something about him from it. No pictures on the wall, no plants. A couch, a bookcase. _Oh, what are the books?_ She stretched a bit to try to see the titles... _Hmm, interesting. And what are those textbooks on the bottom..._ She jumped when he cleared his throat behind her.

"Dinner is served," he said.

"Oh! Sorry, I was just interested to see what you've been reading. You seem to have branched out quite a lot."

"I find learning the language helps with understanding the ideas. Language can shape the brain in surprising ways."

_Ah, language textbooks!_ And the all thought of the books was driven away as she smelled dinner. "Lee's! They're still open? It smells amazing!"

"Yes, I thought you'd like it. I hope I remembered your favorite – ginger tofu stir-fry and the mushroom fried rice?"

"Perfectly. From processed vegetable lasagna to Lee's - you certainly know how to treat a girl."

* * *

A couple of hours later, Lucy was chasing a few fragments around her plate and listening to Emerson talk about Yi Hwang and Neo-Confucian philosophy. He'd seemed a bit rusty on conversation at first, but she had a nearly endless supply of leading question and patience. There was still an undercurrent of awkwardness and anxiety at the table, though. Any time there was a lull in the conversation, she would find him watching her with that worried look on his face.

When even the last of the crumbs had disappeared, Lucy suggested a move to the living room, and Emerson went for it. She sat near the middle of the couch, but instead of sitting close to her, he took the far end. The evening had been mildly successful so far, from her point of view. He'd been carrying on a non-work-related conversation, mostly. On the other hand, he seemed to be avoiding any kind of first move. The dinner and the talk had been her idea and now he wouldn't even sit next to her. _What is going on here? I know he cares about what happens to me, but maybe... over 50 years he just stopped loving me? I never even asked him if there was anyone else... no wedding ring... 50 years is plenty of time for him to be a widower by now._ All of that flashed through her head as she realized that he was not going to sit close to her.

"Emerson, I have to admit to another motive to fishing for your company, "she began. He looked a bit startled, and then... was that guilty? "You've been so closed to me since I... showed up. We used to share thoughts, feelings, dreams. Up until tonight, all you've talked about recently is work. I like working with you, but what is going on with _you_? What's _been_ going on with you since I..." She trailed off, not wanting to say "since I left."

He wasn't looking at her anymore, he was looking at the carpet. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then shut it again. He stared at the carpet some more, and took a deep breath. She decided to continue being patient with him, but she didn't have much longer to wait. Another failed attempt at speaking and he suddenly stood up. "I have some things for you," he said, and disappeared.

_Things? What things?_ He was gone for a minute or two and returned with a cardboard box. "They're... the personal things I found in your office. All the work went in the main storage with everybody else's, but this... I just didn't want these to stay there." He looked at the box for a long moment, put it down on the couch next to her and returned to staring at the floor from his end.

_What could possibly be in this box that's making him so grim?_ She lifted the lid gingerly and peeked inside. A scarf she remembered was sitting on top, folded neatly. A cardigan she'd kept for chilly days. A picture frame with a picture of a young Emerson looking sharp in his uniform. She glanced up at the older Emerson, but he was still looking at the carpet... guiltily? At the bottom of the box there were a couple of souvenir paperweights that had been on her desk and... a tiny box that didn't look familiar. She picked up the lid, and understood.

* * *

"Emerson," she said, softly, gently. "There's something else in this box. Something I didn't leave."

Still staring at the floor, his voice suddenly full of all those years of loneliness (and something that might be guilt?) he said, "I bought that for you two days before you disappeared. I was still working up the nerve." She looked down at the engagement ring with its tiny diamond that must have cost so much of a rookie cop's wages in 1963, and back up at Emerson. His eyes were shut tight, but he didn't seem done.

"I used to try to get rid of it. Every year, on the anniversary of your disappearance." He took a deep breath. "I would take it down to the docks and try to... to throw it in. I was so angry! At myself for not giving it to you while I had the chance, and not being able to find you. At whoever took you away."

"And... angry at me?" she asked in a low voice. He looked at her now and she almost flinched from his eyes. They were the eyes of the Emerson she remembered, the Emerson she loved, but she'd never seen them like this before. She could see regret, fear, shame (it was shame that had looked like guilt, she thought) and she felt terribly sorry for dragging him through this.

"...Yes," he whispered, "Angry at you, too, for not coming back to me, for... leaving me." She reached out and covered his hand with her own. After taking another deep breath, he continued.

"At first I didn't throw it away because I thought, if I found you I still wanted to give it to you. But, the year I turned 40 I was going to try moving on. I took it to the piers and I told myself that you were gone, that I would never see you again. I was just going to drop it in, walk away, and forget, but I couldn't. After that, it was more about forgetting than anger, but I could never forget.

"When I saw you again, I was so... stunned I didn't think of it right away. It hadn't been a ring to me for years, it was just a talisman in a yearly ritual. A couple of days later, when you were still busy with Dr. Beauregard, I dug it out of the box. I looked at it, and then I looked at my hand, holding it." He looked down at his hand, and hers. "It struck me then, how long 50 years is and what those years did to me. And I thought of how you'd been looking at me, like you didn't recognize me and like you didn't believe I was who I said. I knew I couldn't... couldn't... I knew I had to put it away again." He looked into her eyes again and this time there was only sadness in his. "I'm sorry, Lucy. I'm sorry I'm a different man. You were taken away from your old life and I know you need to make a new one. I want you to have the ring anyway, not as... think of it as a souvenir from 50 years ago. I don't want it here when that anniversary comes around again. Please, will you take it with you?"

She'd wanted him to be open with her, she'd asked him what had gone on with him after she left. Her heart was twisted in her chest from hearing his answer. No wonder he'd closed her out. He'd lived with regret and anger for 50 years and had tried to protect her from the results. But he was still her Emerson, she could be strong enough. First, she needed him to understand.

"I will take it home with me, if that's what you want. Will you do something for me?" she asked, knowing that she had already asked more than she should from him tonight.

The ghost of a smile appeared on his face. "Anything."

She scooted closer to him on the couch. "Kiss me, "she said. She hoped that she could show him that his fears about being too old and too bitter were unfounded.

He froze briefly, then leaned in when she squeezed his hand. If she had any remaining doubts about his feelings, they vanished in the kiss. His lips were soft, and when she responded to the kiss, he brought a hand up to touch her cheek. He pulled away too soon for her taste, and looked dazed. "Lucy, - "

"Shhh. I forgive you for being angry at me, and all I need to make my new life is you. I went to work one evening and missed 50 years of your life. I thought you were a stranger, but I never want to miss another day, not another hour, now that I've found you again."

He still looked dazed. She reached over to the cardboard box and picked out the ring box. She held it out to him, and said "I believe you were interrupted by a mysterious disappearance. Why don't you get on with it?"

He blinked at the box and back at her. He picked up the box, spinning it in his hand.

"You said you regretted not asking," she said, "and if you still regret it, that can be easily solved." Still holding the box and never taking his eyes from hers, he moved from sitting on the couch to down on one knee on the floor. He tried to speak, then cleared his throat.

"Lucille, will you marry me?"

She'd meant to be serious about it, to show him that she wasn't toying with him; instead, she couldn't help smiling. He was bruised and battered but he had survived. "Yes," she said simply, and held her hand out to him.

He very gently slid the ring on her finger, and then caught her hand tightly and squeezed it. "Did I tell you once that I'd never met anyone else like you?" he said hoarsely, "In all those years, I have still never met anyone else like you." He smiled, a real smile, and kissed her again.


	2. The Disagreement

**Disclaimer: Not my world, not my characters. I just love writing about them.**

**My first story, reviews welcome.**

The first thing Lucy noticed when she woke up was that her head was at a strange angle and her neck was sore. The second thing she noticed was that the reason for the first thing was that she'd fallen asleep on Emerson's couch, indeed on Emerson's chest. All of the previous evening flashed through her mind, and she looked down at her left hand. The ring was real, the sleeping Emerson was real (and slightly snoring). They'd stayed awake talking and holding each other until quite late, and she remembered listening to the quiet rumble of his voice. She wanted to know everything that had happened to him and everything that he'd done in 50 years, and he'd laughed a little and started telling stories randomly. The case that got him his last promotion at the bureau, what it had been like learning to speak Korean after learning the written language from books, the interesting things had happened to him in Paraguay. The late hour and the comforting feeling of his arms around her had eventually dragged her down into sleep, despite her best attempts at staying awake. _I wonder what time it is_. The lights were still on, so she didn't even know if it was daylight yet.

She moved her head to try to relieve some of the stiffness, and disturbed Emerson. He awoke with a jump and tried to grope for his gun before realizing what had woken him up. He reached out and cupped her face. "Good -," he rasped, and cleared his throat, "Good morning, Lucy." She snuggled back into him a bit, relishing the moment, before sitting up.

"Good morning, but what time is it?"

He struggled a bit getting up and reaching for his cell. "Oof. I'm stiff in muscles I didn't know I had. That was not a complaint, by the way. You're welcome to elbow me in the kidney while sleeping anytime you want."

She blushed a little. "Oh dear, did I really? I'm sorry."

"A quarter to six," he said, after finding his cell. "I think we got about 4 hours sleep. How do you feel?"

"Like I need a shower and a change of clothes. Although, I suppose just the shower will do for now," she smiled.

* * *

Later that morning, as they were walking into their information-dense control room, Lucy was glad that the other people on the task force were mostly absorbed in their work. No one noticed her new ring, or that she was wearing the same clothes she had been wearing the previous day. She and Emerson would be professional at work, of course, and no one here except Dr. Soto knew about her history as a '63. And of course Dr. Beauregard back at the ops center. _Maybe if Dr. Beauregard smirks, Emerson will kill him,_ she thought with a grimace.

While Emerson caught up on what the scanners and cameras had found overnight, she slipped down to the staff quarters to change clothes. When she came back up and re-joined them, they seemed engrossed in some camera footage, and very excited about it. "Have we found another one?"

"We're not sure yet," said Dr. Soto, "but the scanning algorithms identified the man in the lower left corner of this image as possible hit on Warden James."

The image on the screen was from a surveillance camera outside a courthouse. The man looked like he was about to cross the street, and some of his face was obscured by the hat he was wearing, but the general build seemed right and the face she thought was possible. Emerson turned to her.

"What do you think?"

"It... does seem possible. I wouldn't care to say anything certain based on this picture, it's not very clear. Where and when was it taken?"

"This is the city courthouse closest to the warden's spot on the map and it was taken about 45 minutes ago," he said.

They'd been paying special attention to anything within 5 miles of the warden's projected arrival on the map. It was about 20 miles from San Francisco, and they guessed that he would probably have some kind of shelter prepared and stocked. With no clues on when that arrival would be, all they could do was keep watching and hope that he would eventually need to leave it.

"What's that he's carrying, a briefcase?" she asked.

"Soto, play the whole clip from the beginning. There, you can see the object a little more clearly when his back was to the camera. Looks like a suitcase."

It did look like a suitcase. Was it the reason he had left his hidey-hole? Maybe he had to deliver something to someone, or maybe he had picked it up from someone who had delivered it to him. They'd never had any sign of him operating near the other inmates that they had found, so he had to have some way of communicating with them, or perhaps just with Tommy Madsen.

"What other cameras are in the area? Maybe we can get an idea of where he was headed," she said.

"Not so far," said Soto, "We'll just have to keep monitoring them."

* * *

Several hours later, as Lucy was well into a re-review of the latest interview with the mystery doctor (who was still not giving any information away), the computer alarm started beeping. Everyone jumped up but Soto got there first. It was more footage from the same surveillance camera that had provided the earlier result, only this time, the man was going the other direction. He was still carrying the suitcase.

"It's easier to see his face from this angle," Lucy noticed. "I would say that he definitely looks like Warden James from here. It still could be someone else, but this man does bear a striking resemblance."

"Ok, I'll get everything ready for a trip to San Rafael. Lucy, can you call up their police department? I may need some backup when I get there. Soto, you can... stay here and keep us updated on anything else the searches turn up," said Emerson. Ever since Rebecca had been killed, Dr. Soto had lost his inclination to be on the scene, and Emerson had been glad to leave him behind. Lucy headed for her phone, but she noticed and frowned at Emerson's use of the word _I_. She let him see the frown, and he only strode out of the room grimacing. Clearly, last night's revelations had not solved everything.

* * *

Lucy made arrangements with the San Rafael police, although they'd wanted more information than she could give and hadn't been happy to learn of an FBI incursion into their area. Soto was still fiddling with the computer, trying to wring out more data from a distance.

"I've checked and rechecked the footage from the nearby cameras, and the warden doesn't show up on any of them," Soto said, "so I've made this map of where those other cameras are and what their field of view is. I can't tell you where he went, but I can tell you he didn't go any of these ways." There were 7 other cameras in the area, mostly to the south and east of the one they were interested in, but one was a few blocks north. "Assuming he doesn't know where the cameras are, he probably came from the west."

"I'm not sure that's a safe assumption to make," she said. "He is proving to have a surprisingly good grasp of modern life, and we don't know how long he's been avoiding us."

Emerson came back, looking harried. "Alright, Art is checking all of his instruments to see if he can make any guesses about the warden's shelter. Am I going to have backup when I get there?"

"Yes," she said, "They don't seem happy about helping an unspecified federal mission, though, and they were certainly not happy with my lack of answers for their questions."

"They don't need to be happy, as long as they do it."

Lucy bit back a comment on his predictable nature. Fortunately, Soto gave them something else to talk about when he added a new feature to the map – two concentric circles centered around the courthouse camera.

"The inner circle is the maximum search area based on his walking speed as caught by the camera. The outer one is if he had a car traveling at no more than 20% higher than the posted speed limit. It's a pretty traffic-heavy area, so I figure that's a decent practical limit. Wherever it was that he was going is inside one or both of those circles. Of course, that doesn't tell us anything about where he started from..."

"Good work, Dr. Soto. Whatever is drawing the warden out of safety is likely to be very important, to him and to us. Can you send that map to our phones?" Lucy looked at Emerson as she put a slight emphasis on _our_. "We should get going, he's not going to get any easier to find." She looked expectantly at Emerson, who glared at the back of Soto's head before leading her just as far as the other side of the door.

"It is enough of a risk to have you here, in San Francisco," he growled, just as the door closed, "but we don't know what kind of preparations the warden has made. We only know that he is a dangerous man, and that he thinks you are a danger to him. He may have any number of the other inmates or even the guards around him. He may have set traps -"

"I _will not_ stay behind," she said, almost shouting, "I know it's dangerous, I also know that I can help you. I know these men's minds, even the warden's, far better than you. You need my help and I _will not_ sit here calmly and watch you walk away to live more of your life without me. Would you wrap me up in wool? Would you put me in storage? Like _this?_," she said, raising her left hand to show the ring on her finger. "Would you come visit me once a year? Take me out of my box, hug me tightly, and then put me back in? You're too used to loving something that doesn't change, Emerson. I love you too much to just let you walk away as if what you do doesn't matter to me."

"If something were to happen to you -"

"What if something happens to _you?_ What if you go up against the warden without me and don't come back? I need to find and stop whoever did this to me, to us, as much as you do. Neither one of us wants to live without the other, only we mean different things by it. It looks to me like you want to go live," she gestured towards the outside, "without me."

He glared at her, but she didn't flinch. Then, suddenly, he let out a breath and nodded. He looked resigned. "Will you at least wear a bulletproof vest?"


	3. The Warden

**Disclaimer: Not my world, not my characters. I just love writing about them.**

**My first story, reviews welcome.**

A little while later, Lucy and Emerson pulled up to the San Rafael police station where they would be meeting with their backup. It was raining heavily, but it looked like the storm would not last long. Lucy, still uncomfortable in the bulletproof vest and the overcoat that was hiding it, looked around. The traffic seemed a little heavy, but otherwise normal.

There would be 4 police officers working with them. Emerson did his best to explain what they would need to know without raising any unanswerable questions. "The man we're after is armed and... hard to predict. He's responsible for killings in multiple states, including a federal official. We believe him to be dangerously insane. We've tracked him to the area, and he may not be alone. He may have come here deliberately, in which case he may be very well prepared. We're primarily here to scout, but if the situation allows for it, we would like to apprehend him."

It was obvious that there was more to the story than that, but he remained closemouthed on any more details. Art had been able to detect a couple of likely spots for a possible hideout. One building near the edge of town appeared to have an underground floor that hadn't been part of the original plans, and the other strong possibility was an old abandoned warehouse that had recently seen some traffic. When Emerson showed these possibilities to the police, one of them told him that the warehouse's owner had decided to try to sell it, which would account for the traffic. The other building had been a gas station until it closed sometime in the '90s. No one had ever heard that it might have anything larger than fuel tanks underground, so they decided to start there. The plan was for Lucy to stay out of sight at the edge of the nearby trees while Emerson and the police went around the outside of the building looking for traces of a way underground.

* * *

It was dark by the time they were in position, and it had stopped raining. The ground around the station was muddy and the trees were dripping water all around Lucy and the officers. Emerson indicated that he would start his search around the old pumps, and the officers grouped up behind him. That area was paved, so it was unlikely he'd find the entrance they were looking for, but it could provide cover for someone. "Emerson," she murmured, "if he's here, he's not alone. Remember that he was used to being in charge of a large staff. This place is exposed enough that he would feel the need to have a number of guards. I don't know how many of the men he truly trusted, but they'll be here somewhere." He nodded, and moved out with the police behind him. The men silently cleared the area around the pumps, and started advancing on the building. Lucy found herself holding her breath and listening intently.

She never knew when their presence had been spotted, but one moment they were quietly advancing and the next moment they were blinded by a large floodlight trained on them. The light itself was on the other side of the building from Lucy, but she could see that it was shining almost directly on Emerson .

"So, our humble home has been found?" The voice was unmistakably that of Warden James. "I believe these men need to be relieved of their weapons. Perhaps they can be... persuaded to leave us."

All the men started to raise their weapons, but immediately three '63s came around from the other side of the light with their guns trained on their targets.

"I would suggest you drop your guns, sirs," said the warden, "and turn around. One of you, bring me the one in the suit, he looks like he might be in charge."

The '63s quickly relieved Emerson and the police of their guns. Two of them herded the officers around so that their backs were to the light, and the other one grabbed Emerson and marched him around the other side of the light. Lucy's blood froze and her feet seemed rooted to the ground where she stood. She knew she should slip further behind a tree so that they would be less likely to see her if they glanced in her direction, but she couldn't stop watching the spot where Emerson had disappeared.

"If your men do not leave this area immediately, they will be killed. By the time you can return with a new force, we will have vacated this place in favor of another, and bother this city no more. You look like a sensible man, sir. Can I count on you to do the sensible thing?"

She couldn't hear Emerson's voice as clearly, but he said something to the officers.

"Good. Men, why don't you escort the good policemen back to their cars while I have a brief word with their leader here. Have a seat, sir. No? Prefer to remain standing? Well, I can but offer." The next few moments passed in near silence; the only sound that of the policemen and their escort trudging off towards the road through the mud. Soon, she could hear the warden again. "In addition to sensible, sir, you also look familiar. I have an excellent memory for faces and you won't be returning with your companions tonight. Come with me."

Lucy let out a quiet gasp. This second shock seemed to have freed her feet and she managed to put the nearest tree completely between her and the light. What would the warden do if he found out who Emerson was? Would he deduce the involvement of the FBI and the existence of the task force? Probably, she thought. It makes an unlikely coincidence, to have a policeman the warden would recognize from 1963 sent after him in 2012. He certainly wouldn't let Emerson go.

"Stop," she shouted.

"Now, that is a voice that I'm certain I recognize! Dr. Sengupta, what an unexpected pleasure. I have been looking for you for some time now. Would you care to join us?"

"No," she said. Maybe if she made him look for her, he would be interested enough in finding her to leave Emerson alone behind him.

"No? One wonders why you revealed yourself if you planned to refuse my invitation. I can hear you in those trees, you know." She stayed silent. "What a time to have sent my men away. Ah well, if you want something done right, you just have to do it yourself. Come on, this way."

She risked a little peek around the tree. She could see them both, and the warden was holding a pistol to Emerson, whose hands were handcuffed in front. He seemed to be starting his search in the trees closer to the front of the station. Good, she'd been right to keep the talking to a minimum and now he didn't have a clear idea of where she was.

"Now I wonder," said the warden, "just what made you speak up at that moment. Your protection has been chased off, and I doubt you're armed. Didn't want to lose sight of me, perhaps? Thinking I might disappear into the darkness and you'll have to go back to running from my men? Maybe you think you can talk me out of my plans? I assure you, it's far too late for that."

He was getting closer now, still pushing Emerson in front of him. She slipped along the tree, trying to keep it between her and the warden. Unfortunately, her sleeve snagged in some small branches, and they made a loud rustle. The warden snapped his head around towards her. A couple of large steps brought him around to where he could see her, though he was still several yards away.

"Ah, there you are. Dr. Sengupta, you have proven yourself to be... extremely troublesome. You must know I can't let you get away from here." He brought his gun around towards her, and she started to throw herself to the ground. Her feet slipped out from under her in the mud, and she felt a sharp pain in her ankle. She waited for the gunshot, but when it came, it hit the mud several feet from her. She turned her head up to see why.

Emerson had knocked the warden's gun arm away, and seemed to be... Lucy couldn't see very clearly through the weeds, but he had wrapped the handcuff chain around the warden's arm. Suddenly the warden screamed and dropped to his knees, the gun falling from his hand. Emerson was pulled down after him.

"Lucy?" he shouted frantically, "Lucy?"

"I'm alright, he didn't hit me," she said, trying to get up. "I'm alright, ow! Except my ankle hurts. I don't think I can stand up."

Emerson extracted his arms from around the warden's arm, and quickly stood up and stepped on the warden's neck. "Stay down unless you want me to break your other arm."

* * *

It didn't take long for more police to show up. Emerson called 911 and then retrieved the gun from the ground and quickly searched the warden's pockets. They both stayed quiet, hoping to see police before they saw the warden's guards. The warden himself hadn't said a word and Lucy kept looking at him to see if he was still breathing.

No longer needing secrecy, the police and ambulance pulled up near the old pumps. Soon, Lucy was having her ankle wrapped by a nice young man who told her that she should go to the hospital to have it X-rayed. He said it looked like a bad sprain, but the X-ray might find a break. The warden had been handcuffed and was in the back of the ambulance. Emerson had started arguing with the police about jurisdiction even before they'd gotten the handcuffs off of him, but since neither the warden nor his men had killed anyone here it was shortly clear that they would all be in Emerson's custody as soon as the paperwork could be processed. A couple of phone calls later and even the paperwork would be expedited and the FBI would be sending some transportation for the warden's men within hours.

Lucy waited patiently for the medic to finish with her foot and tried to look like she didn't need an X-ray – she didn't want any more examinations in case they led to awkward questions. When the paramedics started helping Emerson, she slipped away from the crowd of people and as discreetly as possible limped back towards the trees, where it was darker. She wished she could pace, to deal with the jittery feeling she had, but doubted that her ankle would stand up to it. She watched the police bring the warden's men into custody, and she closely watched a paramedic cleaning and bandaging Emerson's wrists. It looked like he'd hurt them quite badly. There were a couple of policemen around the spot where the warden had fallen, taking pictures and searching through the weeds, and she moved a little farther away from them, deeper into the shadows.

Emerson didn't have any trouble finding her, however, when the paramedic was finally finished with him. The ambulance crew left, to take the warden to the hospital, and Emerson strode towards her. His eyes blazed, and she prepared for him to shout at her for risking revealing herself to the warden. She got barely a moment to realize that it was not rage that shone in his eyes before she found herself pressed against the tree, his mouth on hers, insistent and demanding. The adrenaline in her body turned to fire and she melted against him.

He pulled away to catch his breath and there was a glint of a smile in his eyes. "I had intended," he said, his voice raw, "to ask you how your ankle feels."

* * *

Lucy knew they'd have to rejoin the rest of the people at the crime scene unless they wanted someone to come looking for them. Emerson helped her to a low wall near the building where she could sit and put her foot up.

"I think they've done about enough here," he said, watching the remaining police officers. Some had left for the hospital, and some had taken the guards to await pickup, but there were still a few poking around the scene. "I'd better get them out of here before they find something."

Lucy sat on the wall and watched him chase the officers away. They started arguing with him, and she wondered if there was another one as curious and bold as Rebecca Madsen among them. Seeing how quickly they gave up, she thought not. Emerson came back to her and helped her up.

"One of them is going to give us a ride back to the car. We'll need to collect Warden James from the hospital as soon as they'll release him. They should have his arm set soon, and we can take him back to Dr. Beauregard."

"What about this place?" she asked. "We still don't know what might be underground here. There might even be more '63s"

"There's a cellar door with a padlock on the other side of the building. It's painted the same color as the dirt. I got the key from the warden's pocket and we can come back tomorrow. If there's anyone else here they're locked in now, and I put a motion alarm and camera on the door so we'll know if anyone else tries to open it. If there are any other '63s around, leaving surveillance on that door might be the best way to find out."

They made their way to one of the police cars and she got in. Already she was having to fake feeling more pain, and she hoped no one would look too closely at her foot.


	4. The Cellar

**Disclaimer: Not my world, not my characters. I just love writing about them.**

**My first story, reviews welcome.**

Lucy blinked at her screen fuzzily. It was about 4:00 AM and she had been trying to concentrate on this latest test result for almost 15 minutes now, without success. Warden James was currently in the infirmary at the ops center, and Dr. Beauregard had taken advantage of the broken arm to hook him up to a staggeringly large variety of monitoring equipment. They had already determined that he did not have the silver-enhanced blood. He had spoken barely a dozen words, and was certainly not answering any questions – Lucy had already made preparations for a more intensive interrogation, but it would have to wait until he was healed.

The four guards did have the silver-enhanced blood. Lucy and Dr. Beauregard had drawn samples from each of them and had begun several experiments on ways to separate the elements – by centrifuge, by membrane filter, by electrolysis. The silver had so far resisted all their efforts and they were working on the possibility that there was another factor in the production of the colloid. They also had some experiments running on ways to create such a bond between silver and red blood cells, hoping to be able to figure out how to undo it if they knew how it had been done.

Lucy rubbed her eyes and stood up. She'd caught Emerson almost dozing off around midnight over the paperwork for the new prisoners and had sent him home to get some sleep. He'd tried to deny that he needed any, but she'd threatened to sedate him if he didn't go and then steered him towards the elevator. With all the guards around a good-night kiss was out, but he'd discreetly kissed her hand before the elevator took him away. She'd spent the last four hours wishing that he was still here with her, or that she was there with him. This place seemed so cold. _Maybe I'll try to have a nap in the infirmary._

* * *

Lucy was woken by the sound of the elevator being used. It was just past 6:00 by the clock on the wall, and she'd slept longer than she'd wanted to. She got out of the uncomfortable hospital bed and headed towards her office. She was just reviewing the negative results from the experiments when Emerson came in. He looked little better than he had six hours ago, and he walked straight over to her and pulled her out of her chair into a tight embrace.

"Is something the matter?" she asked.

"Just dreams. I don't remember most of them, but the last one...You were standing at the foot of my bed, you'd been chased by someone trying to kill you, and you were calling my name. I couldn't move, I couldn't even turn over, I couldn't speak. I managed to wake up, and didn't want to try sleeping again after that one."

She turned in his arms and looked up at him. "Dreamed of not being able to move, and panicking because you needed to? Sounds like sleep paralysis. It means you were starting to wake up, but the sleep phase where your muscles don't respond hadn't stopped. It can cause panic."

He smiled at her and relaxed his arms a little. "I love how you can turn a crazy dream into something that sounds perfectly rational." He stepped back a pace and looked at her computer. "Did you find anything useful?"

"No, all the trials failed to separate the silver from the blood. I wish we knew how the tracking was done, it might give us a clue."

"Let's take a ride back to that cellar door, and see what's down there. None of the surveillance on it has triggered so either there aren't any more of them around or none of them know what happened last night."

* * *

The sun was well up in the sky by the time they arrived at the camouflaged door in the ground. Emerson used the key he'd gotten off the warden, and they descended the dirty, poorly-lit stairs with caution. Emerson went in front, gun ready, and they both had flashlights. Lucy stopped at the bottom of the stairs. It looked like one big room, filled with shelves. The shelves were packed with boxes and cases, all neatly closed or lidded. Emerson checked the whole room for any occupants, and when he didn't find any Lucy went further in, and lifted the lid on the closest box.

"Papers," she said. The next 3 boxes she checked also had papers in them. "Looks like legal or maybe financial paperwork."

"I think I've got the more... interesting end of it, then," said Emerson from the far end. "I've found at least two cases of gold bars and one of medical supplies. I think we're going to need to be a bit more methodical about this."

Lucy got out the notebook and pen she always carried. They started with the boxes nearest the door, and opened everything on every shelf. In the end, the list was a cross between a survivalist's wish list (including 6 cases of gold, 3 of first aid supplies, 4 of guns and 3 of ammunition) and a file catalog. And one large metal case filled with vials of blood, each labeled with a prisoner's number.

"Let's take this one back to the ops center with us," Emerson said. "We can lock up and leave the rest for now. I'll report what we've found and get a forensic accounting team to work on these documents to find out what they're for."

They left the cellar, and Emerson locked it with a new lock he'd brought with him. They left the surveillance equipment and loaded the case with the vials of blood into the SUV. "This may have some answers for us about the colloidal silver," said Lucy, "especially if we can convince the warden to start talking to us."

* * *

Dr. Beauregard was sitting in the lab when she and Emerson arrived with the case. "Hello, Dr. Sengupta, Hauser. I'm afraid I have only more negative results to report. Have you found some answers for us?" he said.

"I think what we have are more questions, though they may be related," Lucy said. "How is the warden doing? These questions may be better put to him than to ourselves."

"Oh, tolerably well. His arm is set, and if you'd like to try questioning him, I don't see any reason not to. Probably best to leave anything...stronger for later, though." His eyes lit on her left hand, and he looked up with a sardonic twist to his smile. "Well, it looks like congr-" Emerson, standing nearby maneuvering the other end of the heavy case, leaned towards him and frowned. "-mm. It looks like, it looks like I should go check on him. Excuse me."

Lucy watched him leave, and then turned to Emerson with a little smile on her face. "At least you didn't threaten to shoot him."

"Oh, he probably knows I won't shoot him, he's too valuable to this project. But let me know if he gets offensive."

Still smiling at him, she kissed him on the cheek. "I'm sure he'll keep his sarcasm to himself. Now, I should get to work on this. Don't you have some forensic accountants to talk to?" She handed him the list they'd made of the cellar contents and turned towards her computer.

"Alright, I'll get out of your way. I may be in and out today, I should go back out to the island to check in with the team there. Just call me if you need anything."

He paused at her door. "I could call in a few favors today and get us an appointment with a friend of mine, a judge. He could marry us before the end of the day."

She straightened up and looked at him. Bits and pieces of the last couple of days flew through her mind: the argument they had had over her going with him to San Rafael, Emerson holding her tightly this morning because of a dream that had woken him up, seeing him handcuffed at gunpoint, waking up in his arms. No words seemed appropriate, so she just nodded her head. He nodded back and turned for the door.

After he left, she released the breath she had been holding, and opened up the case they'd brought in. The vials were in a rack, and she discovered that she could lift the whole rack out of the case. _ So what's so heavy in this thing? _But first, the vials themselves. She opened up the database of information they had on the '63s, and found that the inmates and guards that they had identified as having the silver-enhanced blood all had vials with their ID numbers on this rack. Any that they had found to not have the enhanced blood also lacked a vial. _We've found so few of them so far, but it looks like we now know which will have silver in their blood._ There were 60 vials. She drew a tiny sample from the vials belonging to the '63s they had not yet caught to test this as much as possible. Dr. Beauregard came back in and looked a little relieved that she was alone in the room.

"The warden is well-restrained, if you'd care to... what did you find?" he asked, noticing the tiny vials.

"Vials of blood labeled with the ID numbers of some of the '63s. I believe they came from only the ones with silver in their blood, but I'd like to test them to confirm this. The more important question is, what are they for?"

"Then we return to what I was saying before I interrupted myself. The warden is well-restrained, if you would care to pay him a visit."

"Perhaps in a bit. There's more in this case than these vials. It looks like it comes apart."

A little fumbling with the sides revealed that the side were hinged on the bottom and soon they were folded flat. What had looked like the bottom had been a false bottom, which turned out to be another hinged piece that lifted aside to show a piece of electronics. There were several rows of lights, a large dial, and a small cup of glass in the middle of the whole thing. Lucy looked at the cup with a frown. It was only big enough to hold perhaps two milliliters, and it was detachable from the rest of the piece.

"That piece of glass, I wonder what happens if I..." She reached for the vial labeled 2012 and put a drop of the blood from it in the cup. Immediately the needle on the dial swung around and about half of the lights on the top row lit up. "Yes, that's the direction of Mr. Porter's cell. And the lights..." She picked up the cup and emptied it, replacing it with a drop from vial 2024. When she snapped it into place, the dial pointed in very nearly the same direction, but this time there was one fewer light lit on the top row. "Mr. Sylvane's cell is closer to us. The lights may indicate the strength of the signal." She tried a third drop of blood, this time from an inmate they had not yet caught. The dial pointed a different direction and this time some lights from the third row lit up. "It's an exponential scale. The last row must track a distance of thousands of miles, and clearly the first row can track even a few feet. It needs a sample, though. Is the signal emitted by the blood different in the samples we've taken so far?"

"Indeed. This equipment must be very sensitive – I found the difference to be very slight."

"I think it's time to go have a talk with Mr. James."

* * *

"Hello, Mr. James," she said, walking into the warden's recovery room. As Dr. Beauregard had promised, he was securely strapped to the bed. "Do you feel like talking today?"

"To you? How could I refuse? How are you and your young man doing these days... oh, he's not so young anymore, is he? A shame, that," said the warden caustically.

"I see you've managed to remember him. Perhaps you can remember a few more things. Let's start with the question of what it is you were trying to do with all of this."

"Hmp. Pass."

"Alright, we'll come back to that another time. What about the colloidal silver in their blood, do you feel like telling me what purpose that served?"

"Perhaps I was merely giving some poor benighted prisoners a gift. I was feeling benevolent."

"Towards 60 of them? That seems like a large number for benevolence." A shrug. "We have the... tracking device, I see it requires a sample of the blood. Is that because each person's blood, once joined with the silver, produces a slightly different signal?"

"You have, no doubt, noticed that difference already. We had hopes for a tracker that could track them all without needing a comparison. You have so many more resources than we had, perhaps if you work on it you'll be able to come up with one." Lucy took that to mean that it was impossible, and he would like to see them waste their time trying. _I think that's about as much of an admission as I'll get from simple questioning._

"Thank you, Mr. James," she said, heading for the door. "Until next time."

* * *

She headed straight for the infirmary, and scoured it and the lab for samples of her blood, both before and after the silver. She fed them all into the incinerator that they had for biological waste. Then she sat down with the vials from the cellar and the tracking device. _If we don 't want to run out of samples __before we find them all, maybe we can build more trackers and track them all at the same time._ She called Art on the island to get his help, and he seemed very interested in the tracking technology, though she did not share the nature of the necessary sample with him.

Two hours and some simple disassembling later, Art had some ideas on how to build a similar tracker and Emerson walked back in carrying one of the file boxes they had found that morning.

"There were 59 boxes of financial paperwork, currently being pored over by some of the Bureau's accountants. This is the first of 22 boxes of medical records," he said, nodding over his shoulder at the guards carrying more boxes to the lab. "The rest are on their way. I hope you and Dr. Beauregard can make some sense of them. But first..." He looked over towards the screen were they could see Art rummaging through some boxes of electronic equipment.

"I think I'm about done here for now," she said, "Art seems to have gotten the idea of this thing, yes?"

"Yes, thank you for your patience Dr. Banerjee, I have quite a bit to play with here. I'm sure you have more important things to do than turn that thing around in front of the camera for me." Art smiled and waved before shutting his camera off.

"Can you fill me in on the way into the city?" Emerson asked.

* * *

A long drive later, Lucy was sitting in an office at the courthouse, filling in the last on her part of the marriage license paperwork. _I am glad they don't require a blood test_, she thought as she turned it all in the the clerk and sat back down to wait. Emerson had finished his portion and had gone on ahead to see Judge Reid. She didn't have very long to wait, and then she was walking down the same hallway Emerson had gone down, freshly printed license in hand.

When she entered the judge's office, the two men were standing by the corner of the large desk, talking. They looked up when they heard her; the judge's eyes widened and he murmured something to Emerson.

"Why don't you just get on with it and find out?" Emerson replied grumpily and walked over to her. Her shook his head at her puzzled look, and rolled his eyes a little.

"Well, well, the woman who convinced Emerson Hauser to leave his bachelorhood. Wonderful to meet you," Judge Reid boomed, "and if this wasn't a confidential license, I can think of several people who might have heart attacks at the news, eh?"

"Nice to meet you too," she said, shaking his offered hand and then handing him the license.

He scrutinized it and pronounced it in order. "Yes, let us, as you say, get on with it." He picked up a paper from his desk and began reading from it.

"Are you, Lucy Banerjee, here of your own free will, and do you intend to marry Emerson Hauser?"

"I do," she said, reaching for Emerson's hand and facing him.

"Are you, Emerson Hauser, here of your own free will, and do you intend to marry Lucy Banerjee?"

"I do," he said, squeezing her hand.

"Repeat after me: I, Lucy Banerjee, take you, Emerson Hauser... to be my lawfully wedded husband." She looked up at Emerson and saw his eyes glitter with sudden unshed tears. She repeated the words, hardly knowing what she was saying. In the background, she could hear Judge Reid say something, and it must have been Emerson's prompt because now he was talking.

"I, Emerson Hauser, take you, Lucy Banerjee, to be my lawfully wedded wife."

There was more she didn't hear from the judge, then Emerson was leaning down and she stretched up to meet his lips. Her world shrunk to contain only the two of them, and she stepped closer to his warmth. When the too-brief kiss ended they were both smiling. The happiness was fragile, though, and crumbled when the judge spoke.

"Let me be the first to congratulate you two. Clearly, Emerson has been single all this time because he was waiting for you," he said jovially.

The smile drained away from Lucy's face. She knew the judge thought it was a joke and didn't know how horribly right he was, but that didn't stop the tears from stinging her eyes. "I'm so sorry," she breathed, for only Emerson to hear.

He reached to pull her closer and cradled her head on his chest. "This was worth every day," he said, replying to both of them.


	5. The End

**Disclaimer: Not my world, not my characters. I just love writing about them.**

**My first story, reviews welcome.**

By the time they arrived back at the ops center, Lucy remembered to ask Emerson what he and the judge had been talking about when she walked in the office.

"He said when he heard I wanted to get married, he wondered what woman could have roped me in. Then you walked in and he said never mind that, what did you see in me, he didn't think federal agents made that much money. Frank and his damn sense of humor," he growled.

She laughed. "It _is_ a little funny."

"Mm. He didn't have to be so crude about it." The corner of his mouth lifted a little as they entered the elevator.

When they reached the bottom, they could see Dr. Beauregard in the lab, surrounded by boxes and stacks of paper. "Have you determined what our treasure trove is, Dr. Beauregard?" Lucy asked.

"Experiments, my dear. It seems Dr. Maxwell, the warden's biggest secret of all, ran some quite extensive experiments on colloidal silver and blood. I'd suggest we try to question him some more, but quite frankly these notes and results have already given me a thousand times more information than he's even hinted at. Rats, monkeys, humans. The prisoners weren't even the first human subjects – San Francisco lost a handful of bums in 1958. We have here 22 boxes of all the data on every conceivable aspect of the project, except for the question of why. I've only just finished putting them in what might be chronological order."

Before he was halfway finished, Lucy was already elbows deep in a box. "This is incredible," she said. "We could find so many answers here. It may... take a while, though. Perhaps we'd better start with the human trials. They wouldn't have moved on to humans if the rat and monkey trials hadn't gone well." She pulled her arms out of the box and looked around. "I'll be right back," she said, and headed down the hallway to her office.

"Is there any way I can help?" Emerson asked Dr. Beauregard.

"Why in God's name would you want to try? I understand a little of it and I'm hopelessly lost in the rest."

"Because if there's something wrong with what we did for Lucy, I need to know. And if there's anything we can do about it now."

"Well, we're going to be categorizing things for a while, I suppose you could help with that. I'm not sure you'll find the answers you're looking for, but it would help."

Lucy came back into the room, carrying a notebook. "I'm staying," said Emerson, "We won't be catching any more inmates until Art can tell us more about the tracker."

"I hope you know what you're getting yourself into," she said with a smile. "Alright gentlemen, let's get started."

* * *

Lucy looked at her watch; it was almost 3 a.m. _We have got to start sleeping more regularly around here._ Her notebook was full of interesting little tidbits and fascinating big discoveries they had come across just in putting the documents in some kind of order.

They knew at least one reason why not all of the '63s had silver in their blood (40% of the people who had their blood altered this way died, usually within an hour) and they knew some of the things the blood wouldn't help with (sudden death and psychological disorders being the most notable ones). When they learned about the deaths of the 40%, Emerson had looked nauseous and Dr. Beauregard had inched away from him. Lucy had looked up exasperatedly and said "Obviously, I lived. Can we continue?" She called for a short break when it became obvious that they couldn't, and had then spent the time reassuring Emerson that since she'd been dying to begin with, he'd made the right choice to try something risky.

Later, they'd found the results of some tests on determining who could survive having silver put in their blood. Blood from a person who would die placed in a test tube with colloidal silver would produce a slightly exothermic reaction, according to Dr. Maxwell's results. _No wonder they died_, Lucy thought. There were several tests on factors that might be common in people who survived or people who died, but he hadn't identified any.

"I think we're slowing down," she said. "It's 3 o'clock, and as fascinating as these results are, we do need to sleep." Dr. Beauregard looked relieved, and Emerson just looked tired. "I'll be back in the morning, we can continue then. By the looks of it, we're almost through the data on the human trials."

* * *

The next morning, when Lucy and Emerson drove up to the ops center, there was another car already there.

"Who else knows about this place?" Lucy asked.

"A few people at the Bureau. No one else, it must be one of them." Emerson looked wary as they got out of the SUV and into the elevator. "I don't know what they could want, they've always wanted to keep everything to do with Alcatraz quiet. They shouldn't be here."

The elevator opened and there were two men standing with the usual guards. Lucy assumed they were other guards, as they had guns in holsters plainly visible. The men looked at Emerson and nodded slightly. He frowned and nodded back.

A tall man in a dark suit came out of the lab they'd been working in last night. He smiled woodenly at Lucy and said, "Hello, Dr. Banerjee. I understand you've been making some interesting discoveries about part of our project. You must be anxious to get back to the records you found yesterday. I'll get out of your way. Hauser, there's a few matters I needed to see you about."

Lucy watched the men walk down the long hallway, and then, feeling watched by the new guards, went into the lab. Dr. Beauregard was there, going through one of the stacks of papers they'd already been through last night. She walked over, and saw that that he was only leafing through the pages, apparently aimlessly.

"What's going on? Do you know who that man is?" she asked quietly.

"Apparently he is a Mr. Goodwin from the FBI. All he has told me is that there are going to be some changes soon. There are a couple of other men with him. They don't seem interested in explaining anything, or maybe that's just because they know I'm a '63. Did they go down towards the empty office?" She nodded. "That's right next door to mine. If you'll excuse me, I think I have some experiments in there I need to check." He smiled wanly. Lucy sighed to herself and settled down to continue sorting papers as he left.

* * *

She was aimlessly reshuffling papers from one stack to another when Dr. Beauregard came back in. He headed for the corner farthest from the door and gestured to the lab stool nearby, inviting her to join him.

"We need to be quiet," he said in a low voice, "but yes, I did hear some of what they're up to." He looked around before he continued. "They're getting rid of Hauser."

"Wh-" She swallowed a shout and took a deep breath before continuing in a whisper. "What? How? _Why?_" _Getting rid of him? Sending him away? I won't let them separate us!_

"I don't know why, but as for how they're pulling the old 'thanks to your years of valuable service, you can leave the rest to us and enjoy the retirement you deserve' garbage. Apparently he's well over the mandatory retirement age for field agents."

She sat on the stool and tried to calm her thoughts. _Retirement. What about me, can they keep me here? They're keeping the rest of us, even the other ones who weren't inmates and haven't done anything wrong. Why would they want to get rid of Emerson? _Her stomach churned._ And how is he feeling, having all of this taken away? Can he get me out?_

"I have some... things I need to take care of," murmured Dr. Beauregard.

"Go ahead," she said with a grimace. "I think I'll stay in here for now, and try to figure out what I can... do."

Minutes later, she was still sitting by an empty stretch of lab bench when Emerson walked in. He looked pale and angry as he walked over.

"Dr. Beauregard overheard," she whispered. "Did they tell you why? And... what are we going to do?"

He shook his head. "No, I don't know why. I can guess, though. Since they have the warden and all his records now, they think they don't need me. And maybe... they have some other use in mind for him. If Goodwin thinks I wouldn't go along with it, he had to get rid of me first."

"Some other use? You mean for the..."

"The time travel, yes, and the silver blood possibly. As for what we are going to do, I'll get you out. You'll have to trust me, but I won't let them separate us. Goodwin doesn't know who you are, but we can't hope to keep it a secret. There aren't any records of you from the '60s but all of the prisoners we've got know you. Not by the same name as Goodwin knows you by, but it's only a matter of time. No, I'll have to go talk to the man who helped me get you your new identity. My boss, and Goodwin's boss too, in fact. He knows and he could get you back on the island." He smiled a twisted little smile. "I don't want my 'well-earned retirement' to be running from the Bureau. Can you just stay here for now and try to look like someone they don't need to worry about? I'll be back as soon as I can."

She nodded, but she hadn't missed the uneasy look in his eyes.

* * *

She busied herself with the experiment results all day, trying to keep her mind off what Emerson was doing. One of the later conclusions that Dr. Maxwell had drawn had involved the possibility of an increased lifespan for the subjects. Apparently the rats and monkeys had lived longer, and what little data there was for humans suggested a similar effect. Lucy thought about living even more years without Emerson. _What will I do after he, after he..._ She didn't want to even think it. _...dies? _She blinked back tears and started on a different file. Dr. Beauregard had started pulling the inmates in to his exam room one at a time and appeared to be busying himself with something new. When Emerson came back in carrying some papers, she was just finishing reorganizing the human trial results (Dr. Beauregard's original guess as to chronological order had been close, but not quite right). He put the papers on the table next to the stack she was working on, and suddenly smiled.

"Shh, the new guards are still out there," he murmured. "I'll explain later, but if you'll sign this non-disclosure agreement, the Bureau won't stop you from leaving."

It was actually many signatures on dozens of pages, but Lucy had never been happier to give herself writer's cramp. She had just started, however, when Dr. Beauregard came in.

"Dr. Banerjee, I have some test results I think you'll be interested in. If you can tear yourself away from the records?"

Puzzled, she went with him to his exam room. There was a stack of small boxes on the floor next to his computer, which looked like it was displaying the results of some kind of blood test. She went and looked at it.

"This is just -" she started.

"Wait," he said, "let me get your sweater. I know it gets hot near all of this machinery."

She frowned at him, but he just looked bland and considerate. The room was not noticeably warm, but after a brief hesitation she took off her sweater and handed it to him. He folded it carefully and put it on top of the stack of boxes, then he gestured for her to have a seat at the computer.

"I think I may have found a predictive factor. As you can see..," he said, pulling up a chair and bending his head down so that he could talk in a hushed tone right into her ear. "Is Hauser getting you away?" She nodded. "I have something for you to take with you. Call it a wedding present." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, but he just backed up a bit and resumed speaking in a normal voice. "The levels of potassium are unusually high. Not high enough to cause problems, but they're all on the high end of the normal range." The blood test on the computer didn't have anything to do with potassium.

"It looks promising. We'll have to monitor that closely in the new inmates we get. It seems premature to form any conclusions when we have so few of them to base those conclusions on."

"Excellent point, my dear, excellent point. I know you were probably just leaving for the day, I won't keep you any longer."

When he handed her back her sweater, it felt like it was covering one of the small boxes from the stack where he'd placed it. She finished signing Emerson's paperwork without it, and shivered a little.

* * *

Lucy took a deep breath once she was inside Emerson's SUV. "Where are we going?"

"As far away from the rest of the '63s as we can get. What do you think of the mountains of Colorado?

She smiled. "I hear they're lovely this time of year. Isn't this a little abrupt?"

"Ha. They want to push me into retirement, alright, I'm retired. Now they don't get any say. Is there anything you need from your things on the island?"

"Nothing that can't be replaced. How did you get them to agree to let me go?

Now it was his turn to smile. "My boss knows you're a '63, but he doesn't know what you were doing there. Since there weren't any records of you, I've been trying to hint that you hadn't been working there very long. Maybe just a one-time consultation for a particular patient. I convinced him that you didn't know anything about what had been going on, you just got unlucky in getting caught up in it all. I had to tell him that I... used to know you, he wondered why I was so interested in you being able to leave. And I don't think he'll expect both of us to be gone so suddenly, but he can't do anything about it now. Your turn, what was Dr. Beauregard up to just before we left?"

She looked at the sweater in her lap. The package, whatever it was, was freezing cold. She unfolded the sweater.

"He gave me, or maybe us, this." She opened the box – it contained a note and a frozen unit of blood. The note had a stoppered test tube taped to it.

"'Congratulations on getting out of here, and I think the two of you should have this, if only to disappoint the warden. I used the only sample of Hauser's blood that I had to test for the exothermic reaction, and it stayed room temperature. I enclose that sample here, so that you'll know he won't be trackable. Good luck.'"


	6. Beyond The End Epilogue

**Disclaimer: Not my world, not my characters. I just love writing about them.**

**My first story, reviews welcome.**

Lucy stood in the hotel bathroom, running tap water into a plastic bowl. She looked at the thawing bag of blood on the counter and tried to calm her racing thoughts. She took a deep breath, put the sealed bag in the bowl and walked out to find Emerson sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Tell me again why we're trusting Dr. Beauregard," he said.

"We're not. I ran the original tests on that blood only yesterday. The type is right and it's got silver in it. As soon as it's liquid, we can test it ourselves for the temperature change," she said, gesturing towards the pile of medical supplies on the table. They'd stopped at a medical supply store to get the things she would need to transfuse the blood, plus a thermometer.

She crossed to the bed, sat down next to him and reached for his hand.

"You don't have to do this, you know. It's a risk, Maxwell's studies were small. There may be some other risks besides the one we can look for. I don't... I don't want to lose you."

"You'll lose me if I _don't_ do this. I'm old, Lucy. I feel like I've been running on fumes and willpower for the last six months. I know it'll be quieter where we're going, no more chasing '63s around catwalks, but how much longer can I have? If I keep healthy and get lucky, maybe 10 years, 10 years going downhill from here. Probably less than that. No, if it passes the thermometer test I want that blood."

She looked away and nodded. "It'll be a couple of hours," she said.

"It'll work, you'll see. Maxwell dosed himself, didn't he?"

"Yes, but Maxwell is crazy."

He put his arm around her and pulled her over to lean against his shoulder. Neither of them felt like talking any more, and Lucy tried not to think that this might be their last hours together.

* * *

The blood in the bag was body temperature, and Lucy picked up a sharp knife and a small glass. Emerson barely flinched when she cut his arm and let a little blood into the glass, and then put in the thermometer. She handed him a bandage and then let a little of the blood from the bag into the glass. She watched the thermometer closely, but didn't see even a tiny rise. Finally, it started to cool towards room temperature and she stood up. Emerson was already taking his shirt off. _I can do this. We can do this._

"What was it like when I did this?" she asked.

"You were unconscious, it wasn't like much. Dr. Beauregard hooked up the blood, and a couple of hours after it was all in you, you woke up suddenly. How did you feel afterward?"

"Very... energetic. Like I could do anything, run around the world without breaking a sweat, fly maybe."

He narrowed his eyes and seemed about to say something, but stopped at a simple "Mm."

She got his arm ready when he was lying on the bed, and stuck a vein on her second try. They didn't have an IV stand, so she propped the bag up on the headboard of the bed. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears as she watched the blood flow into him, and at first he didn't react. A few seconds later, though, she noticed his jaw was clenched.

"What's wrong? What is it?" She reached for the IV, but he batted her hand away.

"It's fine, it just... hurts a little."

"A little? What kind of hurt? Does it burn?"

He shook his head. "No, nothing like that, it just... nnggg... just hurts. I can... taste metal." A sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead and his breathing became labored. She knelt by him, and put her hand in his, knowing that if the blood was going to kill him it was already too late. He squeezed her hand nearly hard enough to crush it, but she was determined to stay. _If he dies, at least it won't be alone._

"If the last thing I do... is get you away from Alcatraz... that's the only thing I need," he rasped through gritted teeth. "Cash in the car, it'll..." His back spasmed and he could do nothing but pant for a long minute. "Take my phone when you go... call Nathaniel Brown once you get away from here..." She turned away so he wouldn't see the tears streaming down her face. She tried to say something to comfort him, but she couldn't trust her voice and there was nothing to say.

* * *

Lucy paced along the short distance between the hotel bed and the door to the room. Emerson had only been in pain as long as the blood was flowing into him, but while she was unhooking it from him he'd lost consciousness. She didn't know if it was sudden sleep or a coma, and she was afraid to try waking him in case it didn't work. He'd said that it was a couple of hours before she woke from her coma, maybe this was just how it worked. She paced, checked his breathing and his heartbeat every few minutes, and paced.

* * *

Lucy turned around to start back towards towards the bed, and Emerson was standing, looking at his hands and flexing his fingers slowly. Her heart leaped in her chest and she flew to him. Apprehension gripped her, and she asked, hesitantly, "How... how are you feeling?"

His eyes snapped to hers, and her heart quivered at the fire she saw burning in them. He reached for her, one hand sliding around her waist and pulling her close, and the other running up her shoulder, up the back of her neck. His grip was strong and when his lips met hers it was with nearly bruising force, but any mere happiness she felt at his having survived was consumed by the liquid fire that spread through her from his kiss. Her hands slid up his chest and encircled his neck. This was somehow different from what they'd shared after catching the warden – that had been partly relief and partly adrenaline, but this was pure desire, raw need. She could smell it on his skin and taste it on his tongue, and she moaned. He gripped her even harder and she thought of that rush of energy she'd had when waking from the coma, and pulled her head away just long enough to gasp "Gently!" in his ear.

He relaxed his hold just enough, and when he returned his mouth to hers her knees turned to jelly. He was gentler, but the kiss seared straight through her and plundered her soul, leaving her breathless and needing more. She started to protest that he'd pulled away, but it turned into another moan when his lips started leaving a trail of electric shocks down her neck. He lowered his hand to the zipper of her dress and, maddeningly, left it there.

"Please," she whispered.

The feeling of her dress sliding down to puddle at her feet was the last thing she was aware of before she let their entwined passion draw her into a world without words.

* * *

They lay on the bed, limbs tangled. Lucy's breathing had returned to normal, but her body still seemed to vibrate where Emerson was touching her. She wondered if it would ever stop, and hoped not. He'd been still for a few moments, but she was sure he wasn't sleeping.

"Emerson?"

He turned his head to murmur in her ear, "Yes?"

She smiled. "I just wanted to hear your voice."

* * *

All of the next day and the next night, they drove. They stopped when they came to a small mountain town that looked quiet. Emerson called Nathaniel Brown himself (his banker, it turned out - 50 years of an FBI agent's salary and not much to spend it on leaves a good deal of money) and they ended up owning a modern cabin on 10 acres of land. Lucy settled down to catch up on what had happened in the field of psychiatry and memory, and Emerson helped her sometimes with notes for a book she wanted to write. They both dipped their toes back into the world of music, and if anyone had managed to look in one of their windows on a cold snowy evening (impossible due to all the surveillance equipment Emerson had managed to get his hands on) they might have seen the two curled up on a couch in front of the fireplace while a nearby phonograph spun.

* * *

**Ok, it needed an epilogue. All reviews welcome, good/bad/incoherent.**


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